Tumanyan wrote poems, quatrains, ballads, novels, fables, critical and journalistic articles.[2] His work was mostly written in realistic form, often centering on everyday life of his time.[1] Born in the historical village of Dsegh in the Lori region, at a young age Tumanyan moved to Tiflis, which was the center of Armenian culture under the Russian Empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries.[3] He soon became known to the wide Armenian society for his simple but very poetic works.

His father, Aslan (1839–1898), was the village priest known by the name Ter-Tadevos. He was an offspring of an Armenian princely family of Tumanyan, branch of the famous royal house of Mamikonian that settled in Lori in 10th–11th centuries from their original feudal fief of Taron.

His mother, Sona (1842–1936), was an avid storyteller with a particular interest in fables. Young Tumanyan was the oldest of eight children; his siblings were Rostom (1871–1915), Osan (1874–1926), Iskuhi (1878–1943), Vahan (1881–1937), Astghik (1885–1953), Arshavir (1888–1921), Artashes (1892–1916).[4]

From 1877–1879, Tumanyan attended the parochial school of Dsegh. From 1879–1883 he went to a school in Jalaloghly.[5] Tumanyan moved to Tiflis in 1883, where he attended the Nersisyan School from 1883–1887.[2] Tumanyan's wrote his first poem at the age of 12, while studying in Jalaloghly school. He lived at the teacher's house for a while and fell in love with the teacher's daughter Vergine.[5] Since 1893, Tumanyan worked for Aghbyur, Murtch, Hasker and Horizon periodicals and also was engaged in public activism.[2]

In 1912 Tumanyan was elected the president of the Company of Caucasus Armenian Writers.[2]

In the fall of 1921, Tumanyan went to Constantinople to find support of Armenian refugees. After months spent there, he returned ill. After surgery in 1922, he started to get better. But in September, Tumanyan's disease started to progress again. He was transferred to a hospital in Moscow, where he died on March 23, 1923.[6]

During the government-provoked Armenian–Tatar massacres of 1905–1907, Tumanyan took the role of a peacemaker, for which he was arrested twice.[2] Tumanyan also deeply criticized the Georgian–Armenian War of 1918.[2] Tumanyan was also actively engaged in preaching the Gospel. As he put in one of his verses "There is only one way of salvation; through Jesus Christ abiding inside every one of us".

In October 1914 Tumanyan joined the "Committee for Support of War Victims", which later helped Armenian Genocide refugees settled in Etchmiadzin.[9]

Tumanyan's work is simple, natural and poetically inspired at the same time. It is not by mere chance that dozens of phrases and expressions from Tumanyan's works have become a natural part of people's everyday language, their sayings, adages, and maxims.[1]

Tumanyan is usually regarded in Armenian circles as "All-Armenian poet". He earned this title when the Catholicos of Armenia had ordered that Armenian refugees from the west not enter certain areas of his church and house, since he is considered to be "The Catholicos of all Armenians". Tumanyan in response decried that decision claiming that the refugees could seek relief in the Catholicos' quarters under order of "The Poet of all Armenians".

There are 2 museums of Tumanyan in Armenia, one in his birthplace Dsegh and another one in Yerevan.[2] Tumanyan's museum in Yerevan was opened in 1953.[15]

In Autumn of 2011 the government of Armenia purchased Tumanyan's house in Tbilisi from its Georgian owner and its keys are currently kept at the Writers Union of Armenia. The house will presumably be established as a museum.